


These Elegant Crimes

by dancinbutterfly



Series: You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison [3]
Category: My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Prison, Boys Kissing, Brotherly Love, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Healing, M/M, Moving On, No Healing Cock, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Aftermath, Rebuilding, Recovery, Reunion Sex, Reunions, Romantic love, Sibling Love, Strained Friendships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-27 16:35:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7625980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years after You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison and immediately after Befriend the End of the Line -- Ryan Ross has been out of Janick State Correctional Facility for over a year. Bob is back in his life, he has a job despite his felony record, he barely even nightmares anymore. Those are all good things, so then why can't he just be okay already?</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Elegant Crimes

**Author's Note:**

> The last of the completed stories in the Prisonverse. Posted at the urging of [theletterelle](http://archiveofourown.org/users/theletterelle).
> 
> This story has been edited and revised since it was posted on Livejournal. It's the same story but it's a bit cleaner in places as it's about 7 years old and needed a touch up.

Ryan has been sleeping in Spencer’s bed for the last twelve months. It’s been twelve months instead of the full thirteen he’s been out of Janick because he’s a stubborn fucker and always has been. So when Spencer said, “Dude, you can take my bed; it's fine,” Ryan refused to listen.

“The couch is awesome,” Ryan had argued because it was. It was one of those huge ugly monstrosities that could sit about six people comfortably but was one of those unfortunate not-quite-yellow-not-quite-green colors that don’t actually exist anywhere but on shitty fabrics. Hell, it was bigger than the bed he had growing up. But that wasn’t the point. “I’m not kicking you out of your bed.”

Spencer had pursed his lips, frowned, and said that Ryan had been sleeping on a shitty cot for the last few years for him. The least he could do was take the good bed now. Ryan had told him to fuck himself and stormed out of the apartment.

He came back six hours later because it started to rain and he didn’t really like feeling like a wet rat. They had apologized to each other then Spencer had the gall to tell Ryan that if he wasn’t going to take the bed then neither would he. So Spencer slept on the fucking floor for three weeks before Ryan gave up and took the fucking bed. The couch was comfortable enough if Spencer wanted to be a fucking ass anyway. 

Only now that he’s got it? He spends a lot of time in it. Having the luxury of spending hours at a time in bed isn’t something he’s gotten used to yet. It’s a full size and it’s covered in the blankets that Spencer’s mom always bought and then embroidered with Spencer’s name. “To make it personal,” Ginger always said. 

Ryan used to have two of his own before he went away. He doesn’t know where they are now. Probably in the lot of his dad’s stuff that got sold when he died. He tries not to dwell on his guitars and journals and the house he grew up in and his old skateboard - all the things that are just gone now. He’s good at compartmentalizing and pushing through. They are life skills he fucking earned with blood and tears. He makes no apologies when he uses it ruthlessly.

They are the reason why he doesn’t flinch when Spencer hugs him anymore. The first time Spencer introduced him to Jon - “You know, my friend with the animal shelter? The camera guy who’s addicted to flipflops? I told you about him.” - Ryan can shake his hand and look him in the eye at the same time, like he doesn’t want to curl in on himself and shout _just don’t fucking touch me_. So, yeah, life skills. He’s got them.

Same deal with memories. He sees a tall guy with short, curly, black hair and he can shove the memory of Gabe down and lock it away before he ends up back on his knees in his head. The smash of a basketball against a chain-link fence only sends him back to the yard for a second and he remembers how it feels to be pressed face first into the metal for even less time than that. It’s unsettling but he can get shit back in their boxes pretty fast mostly. 

Mostly doesn't really applied to memories of Bob Bryar. Those are the memories that fucking wrapped around him when he was lying in Spencer’s bed in the dark like physical limbs, making him feel the absence of Bob’s weight pressed up tight behind him. Every time he smelled old cigarette smoke on someone’s hands he was reminded of the packs he won for Bob in card games over the years. Every blond guy with broad shoulders looked like Bob from behind and Ryan’s heart always tripped over hope even though he knew exactly how long it would be until Bob was paroled, knew that the chances of Bob wanting anything to do with him when he got his life back were slim to none.

Forcing Bob into boxes had been met with marginal successes bordering on failure since the day he walked out of the Decaydance. The letters had started as a last ditch effort to get Bob out of his head. It hadn’t worked but he slept better for awhile. 

Then came that day when Spencer found him sprawled on the bed, scrawling on a piece of printer paper he’d taken from Jon’s office, and grinned so big it was like the room was filled with one of those huge concert spotlights. So, Ryan had kept on doing it. Working with the animals gave him enough to put into an envelope and there was a big blue mailbox that was on his way to work at Jon’s shelter so. Yeah. He’d had to get it out of his hands, like shipping the Bob-filled boxes away.

Ryan wasn’t expecting to get anything returned. That was never the point. Turns out that you can only send so many words out into the void without getting an answer. 

Only, now Bob is here. He’s right here with his shy smile and his blue eyes and his big hands that Ryan knows - knows like he knows very few things in this world - will never ever hurt him. He cups the back of Ryan’s neck as they walk back from the diner the way he used to in the rec room, his thumb stroking over Ryan’s nape. 

He rolls his head back into the contact. “I missed being touched,” comes out on a sigh and the words leave his mouth before he knows what he’s saying. 

Of course that’s how it always seems to be with Bob. Ryan’s defenses just drop and his compartmentalization stutters and his filters fail. Also he sounds like a fucking moron so he tries to fix it. 

“By you. I mean- I’m not- Fuck.” He was really good at expressing himself once upon a time. He wanted to make a living at it. He was an English major in college. Now he’s a floundering mess.

It’s okay though because Bob just stops in the middle of the sidewalk and pulls Ryan into a tight hug, the bag full of their leftovers bumping against Ryan’s back from where it hangs off Bob’s arm. “Bet I missed you more,” he murmurs and grazes his nose against the shell of Ryan’s ear. Ryan does _not_ cry. His eyes sting because he’s tired and hasn’t been sleeping well and he’s allergic to that Persian-mix that Jon’s rehabbing. 

So, then they end up in Spencer’s bed. He doesn't even feel bad about it. After all, Ryan’s been sleeping in it for twelve months, well, almost thirteen. He does the laundry for it so if he wants to fuck Bob there, he can. And he does because oh, God, sex with Bob. He’d _forgotten_. He isn’t sure how exactly but he'd forgotten the whole “sex can be good” thing until Bob was kissing him in the doorway, his big hands framing Ryan’s entire face and holding him still without pushing or pulling. 

In the movies, reunion sex is frantic and full of ripped clothes and knocked over lamps. This is nothing like that. It’s slow and lazy and there’s a lot more kissing than Ryan remembers liking when he was doing this in the backs of cars in high school. Ryan sprawls out naked on top of Bob, rolling his hips down in a languid rhythm, loving the way Bob’s solid and fucking hard under him. His mouth tastes like the milkshake and burger he had at the diner - now lying at the foot of the bed, forgotten and waiting to make a mess – and his cigarettes and that something else that’s just Bob. 

Ryan has missed this. He missed Bob’s skin and the way he’d smile with just his eyes. He missed the way simply being around him made Ryan feel safe and understood. Hell, he’s flat out fucking missed Bob. He hasn’t let himself ache with it but now Bob’s here. He’s here and he wants to stay and it has Ryan coming embarrassingly quickly against the crease of Bob’s hip. 

He drops his head into the curve of Bob’s neck, shaking because he’d forgotten. He boxed this feeling away with everything else so securely to protect himself that he couldn’t _allow_ himself remember. Now that he has the past and the reality of the present back, it’s almost too much to bear. He blacks out for a second, blinded by the simple fact that his eyelids refuse to obey him after that orgasm, and misses getting to watch Bob come. He feels it though, feels Bob’s muscles spasm beneath him and feels his breath in his hair as Bob moans his name like the word is something beautiful. 

The afterglow lasts about forty-five seconds before panic hits Ryan like a fist. He sits up, gasping. He looks around wildly around because, fuck, that wasn’t quiet. That was fucking louder than he can ever remember them being. That’s good for reinforcing Bob’s stake on him on the block but he can’t remember which hack’s on duty today. If it’s Blackinton they’re going to be so, so fucked. He can’t go in the hole. He can’t and-

“Ryan.” Bob’s hand is on his face, his thumb stroking over his jaw. He touches but he’s not holding, open but offering.

He blinks a few times and looks down at Bob’s tired blue eyes. He shakes his head then glances around the room. There are band posters and a faded Hopper print on the wall, pictures of Spencer’s family, of himself and Spencer and Brendon and Brent from when they were in high school. 

It doesn’t mesh with Bob’s hand on his skin but that doesn’t stop Bob touching him from being as real and solid as the rest of the room. “Ryan, hey. We’re not there anymore.”

Ryan doesn’t say anything. He appreciates that Bob doesn’t tell him that he’s okay. It means Bob’s still honest like always. Ryan wraps himself in that thought and presses the side of his face to Bob’s chest. He’s sweaty and lumpy but Ryan pretends he can hear his heartbeat. The steady thump-thump helps him stop himself from wrapping his arm any tighter around Bob’s waist because he's not desperate. He's not. He just breathes and silently wills Bob to stay. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Bob murmurs into his hair, even though Ryan knows he didn’t say anything out loud. His teeth are digging into his bottom lip too hard for that to be possible. Bob ignores the way he bites his lip and the tension in his back as the fingers of his right hand card through Ryan’s hair. “I’ve got nowhere I need to be but here.”

“You know I’m not like this,” Ryan says into Bob’s pale skin. The skin doesn’t answer but Bob’s fingers keep up their steady rhythm in soundless encouragement. “I got better. I’m better.” 

“I know you are. You just forgot for a minute.” Bob gives a shrug that doesn’t really work lying down. “It happens.”

Spence is in law school – criminal fucking defense law of all goddamn things – so he thinks that means he gets it. That sympathy is the same thing as knowing what the fuck is going on. Jon’s just an empathetic and genuinely nice guy who doesn’t like to see anyone - whether they walk on two legs or four - be in pain. If either of them had said that, Ryan would tell them to fuck off and leave the room because they can take their sympathy and empathy and shove it.

Bob’s got none of that though. He just understands, matter of fact. It happens. It’s better. The fucking end. 

“It doesn’t.” Because it, well, it just fucking doesn’t. More than a year and it’s never happened before. At least not like that, where he lost where and when he was. It was kind of terrifying.

“Maybe sometimes it does,” Bob replies. It shouldn’t be comforting. It’s not like he said that it’s normal or that it won’t happen again. There’s a quiet reassurance in the words though that does as much good as the soothing feeling of Bob’s nails scraping gently across his scalp. 

He doesn’t reply, just closes his eyes and scoot up so that his head is resting on Bob’s shoulder. Bob turns and tucks Ryan under his chin and they fit like Ryan was made to slide into the curves and planes of Bob’s body. He takes a few more deep breathes then wills himself to relax further and releases Bob to lay his hand flat across Bob’s chest instead. Bob’s ribs rise and fall with his even breaths under his hand and it lulls Ryan so completely that for the first time in more than a year, he doesn’t worry about packing his thoughts into their tiny boxes before he drifts off to sleep. 

~*~*~

“There’s a half naked man in my kitchen.”

The statement jerks Ryan awake to the accompanying sight of Spencer sitting on the side of the bed. Spencer is frowning, the kind that makes his eyebrows meet in the middle of his forehead and purses his lips like he’s just bitten into a grapefruit. Ryan blinks up at him from the pillow and tries to make the sight make sense in his sleep foggy brain. “What?” Ryan asks on a yawn.

“A man. Blond. Beard. No shirt. He’s in my kitchen.” Spencer’s eyebrows are practically touching. Still half asleep, Ryan wants to warn him that it’ll give him wrinkles. “Ryan, why is there a half-naked man in my kitchen?”

Ryan blinks again then turns his head. The covers on the other side of the bed are thrown back but empty. Ryan slides his hand across and it’s not cold yet but it’s definitely not body-heat hot like it would be if Bob only left a minute ago.

It’s a relief that he didn’t wake up to find that. It’s a relief to not wonder, to know that he’s only in the kitchen, though. Ryan almost smiles at that thought. “That’s Bob.”

“Bob,” Spencer repeats. His frown deepens further as his confusion seems to deepen. 

It’s kind of funny. Frustrated Spencer has always been one of Ryan’s favorite Spencer’s. It’s been ages since Ryan saw him without any bullshit worry attached so Ryan gives him a poke. He’s too easy sometimes. “Yeah. Bob.”

“And Bob is?”

Ryan yawns again and wonders how he got under the blankets. He certainly didn’t do it. Bob then. He wonders how long ago he got up. It’s early yet, or late depending on which way you were coming from. Then, Ryan remembers his first few days outside of Janick. He hadn’t been able to sit still very long, all the built up expectation of those last few days inside finally fulfilled. In its wake was the question of “what the fuck happens now?” that made Ryan feel itchy right down to his bones. 

“Ryan?”

“Hm?”

“Bob. Who is Bob?”

Ryan pushes himself up to sit leaned back on his elbows and shrugs. “He’s Bob.”

“Oh yeah, thanks. That clears everything up.”

Ryan glances around and wonders where the hell his underwear went. He knows it came off in the vicinity of the bed but he can’t see it. Yeah, he’s got stuff in the drawers of course but Spencer is sitting right there. He’s gone way out of his way to keep Spencer from seeing him naked since he got out and he’s not going to change that now. He doesn’t see them anywhere so he waves a hand out past Spencer towards the chest of drawers they share. “Can you toss me some pants?”

Spencer pales but he rises and grabs a pair of pajama pants for him and one of his old Modest Mouse t-shirts. He holds them out but when Ryan goes to take them from him, Spencer jerks them back and asks, “Did you pick him up at a bar or something”? 

He’s wearing his concerned face now. Ryan fucking hates that expression. It doesn’t look good on Spencer. Also, it makes his skin feel like it’s fucking crawling. The concern face means that Spencer’s thinking about Ryan in the hospital after Gabe's death, the things that the hacks must have told him, the pity that’s never quite left his eyes, not even when things are their version of normal. “Give me my fucking clothes, Spence. Now.”

“I’m just-” Spencer flounders a little and drops the clothes on his legs. “Ryan, I’ve barely heard you even talk to anyone but me and Jon since you got back and now…” He trails off and jerks his head at the kitchen. “He’s like ten years older than us; what am I supposed to think?”

“You’re supposed to think it’s none of your fucking business.”

“You’re my best friend.”

“Yeah.” Ryan jerks his shirt over his head a little violently. “Not your kid.”

“Ryan, damnit, come on. I- I’m allowed to worry about you. You’re family, it’s sanctioned; and this guy- He looks-” The sound Spencer makes when he swallows is audible. “He looks like he could do some damage if he wanted and, I mean. After everything sudden promiscuity’s, like, a big red flag.”

Anger floods Ryan’s face with heat. He yanks the pajama bottoms under the covers and pulls them on without looking at Spencer. If he looks at Spencer, he will hit him. If he hits Spencer, it might crack one of the boxes open which quite frankly can’t happen. Ryan’s been doing really well with not having a breakdown for years and he’s not about to lose it now. Once his pants are securely on, he slides out of bed and walks past Spencer out of the room.

Bob is, in fact, still in the kitchen. He’s wearing nothing but the baggy black jeans he had on yesterday. His broad back is curved as he bends over their coffee machine. Ryan watches from the doorway as he gives it a smack then sighs and runs a hand over his beard. 

It’s ridiculous how badly Ryan wants to save this exact moment. He can’t hold onto his anger at Spencer. It’s impossible with Bob in his kitchen trying to make coffee like they’re normal people, a normal couple, the kind who could have met on a cross-town bus or through a dating website or maybe friends of friends. In this moment they could be anything except what they are - a gangster and his ex-prison bitch. 

The thought makes his breath hitch loud enough that Bob hears him. He glances briefly over his shoulder then turns all the way around, smiling a little sheepishly. “I, uh, I think I may have killed your coffee maker.” He rubs the back of his neck and gives an awkward little half shrug. “Sorry.”

“It’s cool. It makes shitty coffee anyway.”

“Oh. Good then.” He ducks his head for a moment before he shrugs it off. Then Bob’s smile turns from sheepish to bright, aimed full blast at Ryan. “Hey.”

He tips head to rest it against the doorframe. This is kind of the best he’s felt since he got released, better even than the sex or that first minute he spotted Bob on the stoop. “Hey.”

The moment stretches out, long and quiet, until Bob waves at the coffee maker with his right hand. “I haven’t made any in a long time. Out of practice.” 

“Did you make enough for me?” Ryan asks.

“I tried. There’s not enough for anyone at this point. Besides, you still have to eat you know, since you’re up.” Bob gestures at the fridge behind him with his head. “You never finished that sandwich.”

“I’m not really hungry,” Ryan says as he as pushes himself off the doorframe. 

Bob catches his hip as soon as he’s within arm’s length. His hands don’t pull Ryan to him so much as he walks forward until they’re so close they can’t help but touch. Ryan ducks his head to rest on Bob’s shoulder and sighs. 

Physical contact is not Ryan’s strong suit. Spencer doesn’t try to hug him so often anymore. Ryan has this thing about people and their hands and how they should stay far the fuck away from him. 

Bob isn’t people though. Bob is Bob and this is almost four years of easy intimacy only better. There was never enough time or space to just take moments inside. Even when they were alone in their cell, after lights out with Schechter on duty, the edge of fear never went away. It’s gone now though, leaving behind the solid heat of Bob’s arms around him.

“You know I don’t care if you’re hungry, right? We left early, you’re gonna eat. That was the deal.”

Ryan huffs out a breath that may or may not be laughter, depending on whether or not he’s willing to give Bob the satisfaction. “You’re an asshole.”

“You’re a stubborn little fuck,” Bob murmurs into his hair. 

“Right. Seriously? What the hell is going on here?” Spencer demands, jerking them out of what was a perfectly good moment. Ryan turns his head on Bob shoulder to find his best friend glaring at him. “It’s three am. Who is this, what is he doing here and why did he murder our coffee maker?” This he directs at Bob and doesn’t glare so much as he tries to look bigger than he is, which is a little taller than Bob but lacking about thirty pounds of muscle.

Bob blinks, like he just realized that Spencer was there. He gave a little wave with one hand but doesn’t let go of Ryan. Which is good, Ryan doesn’t want to have to kill him so soon after him coming back and if Bob let go he just might. “Hey, I’m Bob Bryar. You must be Spencer.”

Spencer’s mouth is twisted into a shape that the human mouth probably isn’t supposed to make. It’s frustration, confusion, annoyance and a little bit of fear all mix up on his face. He still manages to maintain optimum levels of bitchiness when he speaks. “Yeah. It’s my apartment so I must be. You know that adding a last name to the mix doesn’t actually tell me anything useful right?”

“Spencer,” Ryan says, his voice a warning. He tries to ignore the way Bob’s hand tightens, just a little, on his hip.

“No. I-” He waves a hand at them both, up then down then up again. “I’m not- Ryan what the fuck? He’s- You don’t even let me-” He breaks off on a sharp inhale through his nose. “I,” he says after another breath, “Have some legitimate concerns about what I’m looking at.”

“Can we talk about them tomorrow?” The request comes out wheedling. It’s undignified but Bob Time is tonight. This morning. Whatever. 

“Tell me where you know him from,” Spencer says. His voice is tight, like he’s trying not to yell or cry or both. He’s got his eyes fixed slightly to the left of where they should be if he were trying to meet Ryan’s gaze.

Fuck. Fuck, he’s not doing this now. “Spencer, I don’t-”

“Ryan,” Spencer says. It’s so close to the hospital voice, the one that was broken, hurt and so horribly guilt-ridden. “Ryan, just tell me it’s not what I think it is, okay? Tell me you guys met in a bar. You’ve been dating over the internet for six months. You’ve been having fucking prophetic dreams about him our whole lives that you just somehow forgot to tell me about. Just, Ryan,” Spencer looks about eight years old and scared, despite the beard and the six-plus feet. “Please.”

“Do you really want me to lie to you?” Ryan asks, because that has always been a line. He’s kept things from Spencer, been silent and evasive but he’s tried not to lie. Not if Ryan could help it, not with him. 

Lies are reserved for people who wanted to break him, use him. He gets bitter sometimes. Okay, a lot of the time. Mostly when it’s late and he wakes up panting from half remembered nightmares with the feel of cinderblock against his face fresh in his mind. Even so, he knows that Spencer’s never done anything but love him. He doesn’t want to do anything that will put Spencer in the group of people who he’s lied so prettily for.

Spencer closes his eyes for a long moment. The sight sends a wave of old ugly sensation rippling down Ryan’s back. He steps back from Bob, just one step so that they're still in each other's arms but their easy closeness won’t be the first thing he sees. “Bob,” Spencer says with careful precision, finally opening his eyes. “You need to leave.”

“No, you don’t,” Ryan shoots back, his eyes locked on Spencer. They slide into one of those glaring matches they’ve been having since they were children, the silence around them stretching out thin and tight.

Ryan sees Bob nod out of the corner of his eye, breaking the deadlock. “It’s cool,” he says with a loose shrug. “Really. It was nice to meet you Spencer.” He gives Spencer a smile that Ryan firmly believes is undeserved, then turns back to him. He ducks down to press a small kiss to the corner of Ryan’s mouth and brushes his hair off his forehead. “I’ll be back by The time you get off work tomorrow. Eat before you go back to sleep, please? You kind of promised.”

“What? No, hey.” Ryan’s fingers clasp tight around Bob’s wrist. It’s the kind of thing Bob wouldn’t do to him in a million years. It probably will leave a mark, if only for a little while. “It’s the middle of the night. You can’t just go.”

“It’s fine,” Bob says even though it’s not. “I should probably head back anyway. You’ve got work in the morning.”

“Do you even have anywhere to go?” Ryan asks, pitching his voice to a whisper. He’d had Spencer and the couch that first night. Bob has him and Ryan can’t imagine that Frank Iero didn’t set up something ridiculously awesome for Bob. He gets a kick out of taking care of his own that goes beyond the professional.

It’s just that they haven’t talked about it. They haven’t had time to talk about much of anything. Being close enough to touch after more than a year, knowing that this isn’t over like he thought it was, it’s been more than enough to take his full attention. 

He’s not ready to be alone again yet. 

“Look, it’s all drunks on the road right now. You’re not leaving.”

Bob’s eyes light up a little even as Spencer grits his teeth and grits out, “Yes, he is.”

“No, he’s not.”

“Ryan, I don’t know what the fuck you think he has on you but you don’t have to do this anymore. You don’t have to be his-” Spencer breaks off mid-sentence, stopping himself before he can shove his foot all the way down his throat, choke and die.

It doesn’t matter though. Ryan knows exactly what comes next. There’re a lot of different options but all of them mean the same thing. Ryan can feel his lips quirking upwards at the corner, brittle and smooth, even as his insides freeze over. “His what, Spence?”

“Ryan,” Bob whispers. He doesn’t touch him, just steps closer so that Ryan call feel the heat radiating off of him again. “Ryan, easy. It’s okay.”

“Nothing,” Spencer says quickly, holding up his hands. He’s shaking his head so violently that his hair is flying around his face. “Nothing. I didn’t mean that. I’m just worried about you after everything. I don’t want you to get hurt anymore.”

“No, tell me. His what? I want to know what you think I was. His pet slut?” Ryan presses, sliding back into the cool blank empty space like diving into a pool. It feels good, soothing, quiet. He knows how to be this more than he knows how to be the roommate, the best friend, the animal shelter assistant, and the human being. It’s as comfortable as an old hoodie and well-worn sneakers. “His bitch? His whore?”

Bob flinches. Ryan can almost feel it from this close and gives in to the impulse to press his thumb to his lower lip. It comes away clean and he frowns. It shouldn’t. It should be red if he feels like this. “You’re not.”

Ryan only half hears him. He’s too focused on Spencer’s pale, horrified face, just like he always knew it would look. “Come on Spencer, don’t you want to know if he’s the one who I went to my knees for to get a line of coke or a tube of lipstick? If I sucked his cock so he wouldn’t break my face?” The words pour out of his mouth like water from a pitcher and hey, turns out it really is just like riding a bike. Some muscles just don’t forget. “I bet you’re wondering if he’s the guy who taught me to take it dry or if he’s the one who broke my jaw when I accidentally caught his dick with my teeth. You’re wondering if he was one of the guys who nearly killed me mid-fucking-gangbang. Aren’t you?”

“Ryan.” His name is a choked off sob that has Spencer’s eyes bright and shining. “I didn’t-”

“I know you didn’t. That was the whole point, remember? You didn’t.” He shrugs and tilts his head over and back, old impulse to show the long line of his neck winning out over the freezing anger lacing through his veins. “I did.”

The sound Spencer makes is a low gasp that reminds Ryan of a gut blow. He’s received enough to remember the rush of air it always forces out. “I’m sorry,” Spencer chokes out; his voice is a raw whisper that Ryan will probably hate himself for later. For now, he’s just hollow.

“I’m going to bed.” He turns and looks at Bob. The expression behind his blue eyes is familiar, stricken but accepting. Some detached compartment of his brain tells him that it’s a good thing that he still wants Bob close. That’s supposed to be progress, right? “Come with me.”

The one stop he makes before crawling into bed is to grab his phone and text Jon that he’s not coming into work tomorrow. Jon’s way more understanding than he has any right to be. Ryan bends over backwards not to take advantage of that most of the time but at the moment he doesn’t give a shit. 

Ryan lies still between the covers for a few moments before the bed dips. He reaches backwards, his hand hitting Bob’s arm in quiet permission. Bob curls around him, breathing against the back of Ryan’s neck through the quiet. 

Ryan counts to twenty-six before Bob breaks it. It’s longer than he was expecting, honestly. “You’re none of those things.” Bob says softly. “And you know it.”

Ryan shrugs but says nothing. He doesn’t want to fight anymore and this is one of the few things Bob absolutely would fight him on.

“And just so we’re clear, you know this doesn’t get you out of needing to eat right?” Bob presses his hand flat against Ryan’s stomach. The gentle pressure goes a long way to anchor Ryan both to the bed and to the present.

“Got distracted. It happens. I’ll eat later.” 

Bob makes a humming noise that doesn’t sound convinced. Ryan covers Bob’s hand with his and laces their fingers together. He really isn’t hungry, or tired, but right now, focused on Bob’s breathing and the feel of him warm and solid, he’s not thinking either.

~*~*~

Frank’s dropped off a cell phone in Bob’s mailbox. Of course it’s dead by the time Bob actually makes it back to his apartment. He’s spent the last week at Ryan’s but Frank knows where he is. If it were important, he could’ve found him and when it comes to Frank, he knows it’s the thought that counts.

Work does too, of course. Frank’s programmed the numbers of every member of the Family who even remotely matters along with all the police officers, customs officials, and circuit judges that the Ieros own. The only text message in his inbox is a winking smiley face made out of a parenthesis and a semi-colon so Bob isn’t too worried about an assignment just yet. 

“It’s a lot smaller than my last one,” Bob says, staring at it over Ryan’s shoulder as it charges on the nightstand beside Ryan’s button-covered mini-computer posing as a phone. “Probably costs more than my car.”

“I doubt that,” Ryan replies dryly, his shoulders shaking a little. It’s not a laugh exactly but it’s a near thing. Bob can feel it this close, curled together on Ryan’s bed, Ryan’s back to his front. 

Ryan smells like dog shampoo from work, a little sweat and the anti-bacterial handsoap in the bathroom. Ryan’s been idly playing with Bob’s right hand for the last fifteen minutes, tracing over scar tissue on his knuckles and the short edges of his fingernails. Bob likes the idea that this could become normal.

“Could be.”

“Yeah it could be,” Ryan agreed, plucking Bob’s phone up to examine it. “Maybe. If it were plated in solid gold, and could be programmed to blow you then cook you a five course meal.”

“If they’ve invented a machine like that in the last year, and you didn’t tell me, I’m going to be pissed.”

Ryan rolls over a little twisting so that he’s on his back instead, his shoulder pressed into Bob’s chest. He taps buttons on the phone with just his thumb and shrugs. “I don’t know. Grab an Apple catalogue and find out. There’s probably an app for that.”

“An app.”

“Yeah. Not for this phone though.” He waves it towards Bob’s face to illustrate even though this close, Bob can see pretty much everything Ryan is doing. “I can’t believe Frank got you such a shitty one. He always seemed to have better taste than that.” 

“You sure we’re talking about the same Frank?”

“He did manage to get a DS inside.”

That had been a good weekend. Of course, the gossip chain had gotten it taken pretty fucking fast. Frank had dined out on the points he earned on that stunt with the Wentz camp for about three months so it served its purpose. “For all of two days.”

“Still. You kicked his ass at Mario like thirty-six times before it got confiscated.” Ryan hits the center button twice and it makes a beeping noise. He hums in the back of his throat then puts the phone back down. “Done.”

“What’d you do?”

“You didn’t have my number in there.” Ryan says simply. “Now you do.”

“Right.”

“So you can call me.” He gives another of his ‘yeah, whatever’ shrugs. It knocks his shoulder against Bob’s sternum. “You know, if you want.”

It is so stupid the way that makes his pulse speed up. It’s just that he’s never really done this before. When he was with Brian, they were too broke to sleep in the same place three nights in a row let alone have a phone. There was no programming of numbers, no trading of space with him. They were too unhinged. 

After Brian, Bob went through a really long period where he wasn’t even interested in trying. It wasn’t that he tried to confine himself to one night stands and friendships. It just worked out that way, especially after he became part of the Family. 

There were standards after all. Frank was more flexible than most people Bob had met, not just among people in the business but period. He didn’t care who Bob fucked or how but his father and the Old Gang were the types who would. He’d been new and wasn’t exactly looking to buck the expectations of the rest of the Family. Besides, spending anywhere from ten to sixteen hours a day with Frank didn’t exactly leave him starved for contact. If anything going home alone, where a hundred pounds of overly-affectionate, handsy mafia don-in-training wasn’t climbing all over him, was a relief. 

Then he and Frank got busted and there was Ryan and now there’s someone he loves like he loved Brian, maybe more. Inside it always had a desperate edge to it but it’s softening up a little out in the real world. Considering how deeply badly they started, how fucked up they still are, little things like sharing a toothbrush or fighting for blanket space or Ryan putting his number into Bob’s new phone are amazing. It’s a hint of promise that they can get where they want to go, eventually and together. 

Okay, maybe Bob’s putting too much worth on too small a gesture. It’s entirely possible. Frank’s accused him on more than one occasion of over thinking things. Bob usually replies that he has to as Frank doesn’t think enough. Most of the time it’s just another of his annoying little ways of showing affection but sometimes he’s right. Bob thinks this may be one of those times, though he’s thankful Frank’s not around to rub that in his face. 

He wants to be right about this. Bob’s spent every night since he got released at Ryan’s. Listening to him breathe in the dark, shallow and fast through nightmares or deep and slow through peaceful dreams, has gone a long way to making Bob regress into the adolescent idiot he doesn’t remember ever actually being. 

He’s okay with that; it’s just sort of embarrassing. While he’s lost in his own thoughts, Ryan’s gone back to studying his hand though so it can’t be too noticeable. Bob wonders what Ryan’s looking for in his fingers and the lines of his palm but doesn’t ask. He doesn’t need to know and if Ryan wants to tell him, he will. 

Ryan’s switched from his right hand to his left when the sound of a door opening freezes him. Bob watches him change so fast it makes his head spin, going tight and sharp all over. It’s his flight or fight response, honed like a fucking knife only now he’s using it to defend against his best friend. Bob does not sigh, he just really wants to. 

“Ryan,” he begins, combing the fingers of his free hand through Ryan’s hair once. “Hey.”

“I’m going to go wash my hands.” He sits up, pulling away from the contact. He turns so that Bob can’t see his face but he doesn’t really need to. Bob knows. He hates it but he knows.

“I’ll go talk to him if you want,” Bob offers. His answer is the sound of the bathroom door shutting and the lock clicking. 

Right. That’s not unexpected. So long as Ryan doesn’t come out wearing the MAC “Underworld” lipstick Bob found hidden in the back of the cabinet under the sink when he was looking for mouthwash, he’s pretty sure they’re doing okay. 

If he does, then Bob will just deal. He knows how and will. He can do this again if he has to. Ryan’s worth it. But it hasn’t happened yet so he’s not going to think about that right now. He’s going to get up and go talk to Spencer because Ryan didn’t technically say no and it’s the kid’s apartment too.

He grabs his t-shirt off the bed, tugs it on because he doesn’t need a repeat of that first night in the kitchen, and pads out into the living room on bare feet. Spencer is on the couch in the living room, ferreting through the stacks of books on the coffee table. They each look thicker than the King James Bible and have titles like Supplement to Cases, Comments and Questions on Criminal Process and Learning Criminal Law As Advocacy Argument. His hair sticks up in clumps, gleaming with what Bob remembers from Way as the “I haven’t washed my hair in days” shine. He looks drawn under his beard, thin with bruise colored smudges under his eyes.

He clears his throat and Spencer’s head jerks up. He blinks at Bob, tensing from his neck down to his feet and gives him a curt nod. “Ryan’s here?”

“Yeah. He’s in the bathroom if you want to get some stuff out of the bedroom. I don’t think he’s going to talk today.”

A muscle in Spencer’s jaw ticks as he clenches his teeth. “Right. He hasn’t in weeks. Why would today be different?”

“Hey, listen, Spencer, I don’t want to be a problem for you two.”

Spencer doesn’t laugh at him disbelievingly. He doesn’t really change expression at all. “Yeah.”

“I want you guys to talk. You obviously mean a lot to him and he means a lot to me so, I want to help if I can.”

“Sure.”

Great. Monosyllabism. That’s pretty much never a good sign. “I’m trying okay? He just- He has to do things in his own time, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. He’s been my best friend since I was five years old, Bryar.” Spencer drags a hand through his messy hair. It makes it even worse. “I think I know him by now.”

 _If you knew him_ , Bob thinks, _you would never have said what you did to him. If you knew anything at all, you would never have purposely put him back there._ What he says is far less incendiary. “Okay. I’m just saying it’s possible that I know him too.”

“Why?” Exhaustion drips from the question just as thickly as the frustration. Spencer’s blue eyes are bright with anger above the dark bags. “Because you were the lesser of his evils in fucking prison?”

“All right, stop,” he snaps. Bob is surprised to find that actually has to count to ten to keep from crossing the room and smacking this kid silly. His control is usually so much better than this. As it stands, he finds himself having to work on unclenching his fists. “You’re angry; I get it. But you have no idea what you’re talking about so you should just stop.”

“Or what? You’ll beat me up? Break my legs? I know who you are, Bryar. Your criminal history’s public record. So what are you going to do?” Defiance sparks in his eyes for a second then Spencer’s voice breaks. “Snap my neck and toss my body under a bridge in one of those parks where people who fuck with the Ieros are always turning up?” He drops his shoulders and ducks his head, just a little. That’s a Way move too. It’s self-loathing and self-abusive. It’s the look of a guy who’s wearing his guilt like a coat and is begging for someone, anyone, to punish him for it. “Go ahead.”

More deep breaths. This is Ryan’s person, as close as a brother, the only thing he has even remotely resembling family so Bob can keep his cool and not lose his head, no matter how pissed off he is, which is very. He doesn't get angry often but Spencer is pushing him. “I don’t know what you think you know about me but I don’t make a habit of killing civilians. Hurting people who don’t know how to defend themselves isn’t really my style in general. So whatever it is you think you know about what happened to Ryan in Janick, and I can tell you right now you don’t know jack shit, it wasn’t me who did it. I would never hurt him.” He fixes his eyes on Spencer, stares until the younger man met his gaze. “Never.”

That stops Spencer, sends his eyes down to his shoes. “But you were there.”

Bob does not say of course. Spencer has no way to know that Ryan’s not the only one with nightmares. “Yeah.”

“And you didn’t help him.” The accusation comes out in a whisper and Bob finally gets it. No, he does. It took him way too long but he can see what Ryan was hiding from so fucking desperately in Spencer’s face now. 

His eyes are blue, like Brian’s. They’re a similar blue and the heartbroken expression in them could be carbon copies. It’s a nauseating mix of relief and gratitude crushed by devastating grief and ugly guilt. They’re heavy things to have directed at you full force and Ryan’s not ready for it. Maybe he never will be.

After all, it had sent Brian running from him. Bob had understood, as best he could, too young to really grasp how far and long the distance could end up being. That was different though. He’d made a choice and he’d taken an eye for an eye without asking Brian’s permission. What Ryan did for Spencer, what they are to each other- it’s just different. He doesn’t want Spencer to run from Ryan now that they’ve made their way back to each other. Both of them deserve better.

So. Diplomacy then. Right. Fuck, he should’ve had a cigarette before doing this.

“It’s not that simple,” Bob says. He stands with his shoulders loose and his hands palms out hanging by his sides.

Spencer shakes his head. “The fuck it isn’t. I saw what they did to him when he was in the hospital. And his limp-" He breaks off with a strangled breath. Bob draws in a deep breath right along with him because fuck, he knows. 

Bob remembers the way Ryan had laid crumpled in his bunk for days after Gutierrez attacked him with that pipe, the way Frank had gone through three times as many cigarettes as usual with hands that shook a little. He remembers the satisfaction of opening the bastard’s skull with a pipe of his own. It takes a lot of work not to dwell on how that attack wasn’t the first, the last, or the worst. He doesn’t need to be reminded more, thanks.

“Look, I’m not saying it wasn’t a horror show all right? I just can’t tell you anything that he doesn’t tell you himself.” Even though he really wants to. It’d be so much easier if he could just explain things to Spencer for Ryan. Easy’s never really been at the top of his priorities though, definitely not with Ryan. “You’re his best friend. You of all people can understand that.”

The responding wince is visible. It does nothing to loosen the tension in Spencer’s jaw. If anything, it tightens it. “I get that but not when I could help if I knew more.”

“Spencer,” Bob sighs, pulling from the deep well of patience dug by years spent locked in close quarters with Frank Iero, Ryan Ross, Gerard Way, and Pete Wentz. “You’ve got this idea of what you think he needs from you but Ryan’s a strong enough man that he’ll help himself. You and me, we’re just back up. It fucking sucks but we’re here. That’s better than not being there. Trust me.”

Spencer’s face crumples for half a second before it smoothes into a mediocre copy of blankness. If Bob didn’t know Ryan, he’d think it was good. Convincing even. Spencer’s stone face is boiling water compared to Ryan’s mask so Bob doesn’t buy his cool shrug at all as he says, “I’m supposed to grab dinner with Jon. I just needed my notes for class.” He holds up a book to illustrate this. 

“Okay,” Bob says, even though Ryan told him that most of Spencer’s classes are in the morning or early afternoon before he gets out of work. 

“He’s in the bathroom?”

“Last I checked. You might want to knock before you go in the bedroom.” Ryan doesn’t like to be snuck up on. He tends to strike out when surprised.

Spencer nods and rises to his feet. He gets to the edge of the living room before he stops and turns halfway around, not far enough to face Bob but enough. “He doesn’t freak out when you stand too close,” he says, his face pointed towards the closed door hiding Ryan. “He lets you touch him and he likes it. So, I’m going to work on overlooking how you’re fucking mafia and try all right? He doesn’t need me anymore so I’m fucking trying.” 

Idiots. Idiots who don’t know how to talk to each other to save their fucking lives. He pinches the bridge of his nose and calls “Hey, Spencer,” because seriously, when did he become the communication guy? He wishes he still talked to Brian because the teenage Brian would have laughed for fucking days on this. 

He turns and Bob ignores the way he wipes his eyes quickly. “What?”

“For a fancy law student, you’re kind of stupid if you think he doesn’t need you. Seriously. Why do you think he’s still alive?”

Spencer doesn’t say anything to that. His shoulders heave with what must be a sob and he bangs on the door of the bedroom twice. When there’s no answer, he disappears inside and emerges with a pillowcase full of clean clothes before Bob can fish his cigarettes out of his pockets.

He only slows down to try and juggle his keys and three of those thick law books. “Tell him I’m going to crash on Jon’s couch. I probably won’t be back before Friday.”

“Or you could tell him.” Bob offers. His fingers finally hit the crumpled pack and pull one free along with the lighter. 

That’s five days. Spencer should just shout it through the door or something. He doesn’t though. He just adjusts his burdens in his arms and pushes his way out the door of the apartment without looking back. 

~*~*~

“The wife wants to know when you’re going to bring him to Sunday night dinner,” is the first thing Frank says when he calls. Bob rolls his eyes even though Frank can’t see it. He doesn’t really need to. He’ll get it anyway.

“Boss,” Bob sighs by way of hello. He’s at the bank at the moment, sorting out his legitimate accounts and it’s rude to be on the phone in the bank. If were anyone but Frank, or okay Ryan, he would never have picked up. “Is this business related?”

“Yes it is. Jamia’s going to kill me and then there will be no more business if I can’t get you and Ryan down here for dinner sometime in the next few days. She has a knife, Bob. She has a knife and she’s threatening me.” There’s indistinct shouting and the sound of something banging against wood. “You are too!” Frank shouts back, forgetting to take the phone away from his mouth first.

Bob winces and jerks his head back. He makes an apologetic face at the teller who seems annoyed that he’s taking up valuable time that could’ve been spent reading the book he saw shoved behind her computer. “Boss?”

“What?”

“Is this a work call? Seriously?”

“Yeah, insomuch as I’m checking to make sure you’re not dead. You’re not right?”

Bob pinches the bridge of his nose. Only Frank. “No.”

“You sure Ryan didn’t sex you to death? Now that you have all that free time and access to drug-store grade lubricant I can see where he might.”

Okay, Bob is not having this conversation. And he is not going to think about the things he had to do to get a hold of unexpired condoms and decent lube inside. No, no and hell no. “I’m hanging up now.”

“And we’ve got a meeting on Friday.”

“With Jamia?”

“With Adam.” Adam’s the heir apparent of the Lazzara Family. He and Frank have been working on building an alliance for when the old gang retire since before Frank got arrested. It needs to happen. The less dispute between Families, the more time there is to focus on the business of the Business. “I need you there, Bob. Should be friendly but he’s going to have his guy, so I gotta have mine. ”

Oh. Of course. “Just say when and where, boss.”

“That’s why you’re my favorite. We’ll do dinner afterwards if no one gets shot. Ma finally forked over her bolognaise recipe and it only takes like, two tweaks to be vegetarian so we’re going to do that. He likes Italian right? Never mind. Everyone likes Italian.”

“Frank.”

“Dude, she’s ready to drive up there and bring you back bound and duct taped in the trunk of her Prius. You know she’ll do it too and neither of us want that to happen. I don’t know about you but I’m still not so great with confined spaces so. Friday.”

“Friday. Meet you at the usual place?”

“Yeah. And tell him, Ryan, tell him I said hi, all right?” Frank says, going suddenly serious. “I, uh, yeah. Just that I said hi.” His laugh sounds fairly natural except that it’s Frank and Bob knows him well enough to know it’s not. “If he even remembers my ass.” 

Bob sighs because he knows how Frank worries. He worries about his people the same way Bob does, which is one of the reasons why they work so well together. Ryan is his people, has been ever since the first time he needed Frank. It’s a loyalty issue and if there’s one thing Bob gets it’s loyalty.

“I will. See you Friday, boss.”

“Bring a dessert, cannoli, from that place down the block from the thing? You know the one. Don’t forget.”

Like he could. They used to hit that bakery every weekend – according to Frank they were the only place in the Tristate area that made vegan desserts that actually tasted like dessert. Frank’s killed the line before Bob can say any of that that. 

So he just sighs, pockets the phone and gives the teller an apologetic smile. She doesn’t seem moved. 

Bob, on the other hand, is rocked nearly off his feet when she hands him out two printed statements for his checking and savings accounts because damn. Okay. He’d been doing alright before he went away and the Family took care of its own when they were inside if they stayed loyal. Bob just hadn’t realized how much. 

The number is more than a relief. It’s a golden fucking parachute if anything happens to Frank. It’s the rest of his life if he keeps living like a sane human being. It’s a better apartment or a house where he could have a dog and money to live on. He’s suddenly glad he’s seeing Frank Friday because they have to talk about these numbers. There’s no fucking way they’re right. Only they must because it is so typical of Frank to be overly generous like that.

Of course, he’s pretty sure that even after negotiating Frank down from _Are You Fucking Kidding Me_ to the saner _This is What I Deserve for Services Rendered_ he’ll have enough to afford taking Ryan to dinner. They haven’t gone out since the diner and with how stressed Ryan’s been over Spencer, the least Bob can do is offer. It’s his turn after all. 

It’s early yet but he’s not going back to Ryan’s apartment without him there. He kills about fifteen minutes in the grocery store across the street buying more cigarettes, a copy of Rolling Stone, and another thing of KY because he doesn’t remember how much they have left. 

When he's done, he steps out into the sunlight and tries to remind himself that having this much free time felt like a good thing before he got arrested. He doesn’t remember what he did with it all, spent most of it with Frank probably. After the meeting on Friday, Bob is ninety percent sure that will start back. In the interim, there’s just days broken up by time when he’s with Ryan and when he’s not. 

The time he’s with Ryan is always better than without so Bob finally takes Ryan up on the offer of going to the shelter he been making for the last few weeks. Ryan talks about it with pride and okay, he wants to meet this Jon guy. Ryan talks about him like he’s worthy of canonization. Plus, Bob’s always been a sucker for animals, especially dogs.

The shelter is a mile from Spencer and Ryan’s apartment. It’s away tucked on a back street three blocks from the city pound. Ryan told him that Jon’s recently gotten the shelter certified as part of the Humane Society instead of just running on his own steam, public grants and private donations. Bob thinks that means they’ve got a little bit more money now but Bob isn’t surprised to find no one at the front desk. 

There is, however, a bell – one of the ones that looks like a doorbell and is less of a chime and more of a loud buzzing. Bob hits it once, hears the echoes of barking through closed door behind the desk. He leans against the counter as a door to the back swings open. 

A young man in a long-sleeve thermal shirt under faded Rolling Stones t-shirt walks out and comes up to the counter, leaning right back. He brushes shaggy brown bangs off his forehead and smiles at Bob. “Hey. I’m Jon. How can I help you?”

Bob knows he’s starting but he can’t help it. The famous Jon Walker is Ryan’s age. He’s got the shadow of a beard that makes him look maybe a little older but he’s still under thirty if he’s a day, definitely younger than Bob himself. He’s not what Bob was expecting. He was expecting an overweight ex-biker type who knew from experience that ex-con didn’t always mean lost cause. 

“Hey,” Jon says again, resting his forearms against the edge of the linoleum separating them. “I could guess maybe? You seem like a big dog kind of guy.”

“Good guess.” He actually is kind of a big dog person. He had a German shepherd for awhile as a kid before his mom died. The dog went to a girl down the street. He went into the foster care system, though not for long. 

Jon grins. It goes all the way up to his eyes and makes them crinkle. “It’s a gift.”

“Sounds useful but actually I’m looking for Ryan.”

Jon doesn’t stop smiling. It just leaves his mouth, setting into his eyes instead. “Ryan Ross? Really?”

“Yeah. Um, could you tell him Bob’s here?” His skin gets hot for no damn good reason. There’s nothing blush-worthy about this. He rubs the back of his neck but it doesn’t really help. “He doesn’t need to come out or anything if he’s busy. It’s not important. I can wait.”

“Oh, wait, wait, you’re Ryan’s Bob?” The smile is back, full force and he’s reaching out to flip something on his side of the counter. There’s a click and then Jon lifts a segment of the countertop up to create a doorway. “Come on back. He’s cleaning up a new arrival and he’ll be awhile otherwise.”

Bob goes through and glances around. There are stacks of paperwork, packets of flea medications, rings of keys and other appropriate pet related items. “Am I even allowed to be back here?”

“I’m in good with the boss,” Jon says in a stage whisper. “It’s all cool man. I won’t snitch on you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Jon grins over his shoulder and leads him through cement hallways lined with kennels. “Don’t mention it.”

Jon seems like the kind of guy who’s ready to be friends with just about anybody given half a chance. He’s one of the only people Ryan talks about with any frequency and Bob likes him already. That’s good because as far as he can tell Ryan only has two friends and he’s pretty clear on where he stands with Spencer, which is hip deep in shit. 

They stop every few feet for Jon to soothe one of the dogs or adjust their water bottles through the chainlink of the kennel doors. He doesn’t stop at every full cage but his eyes check each as they pass by. It reminds Bob a lot of D-Block and his skin crawls a little. Then a long pink tongue and black nose pushes through to lick or nuzzle at Jon’s fingers and he’s reminded how different it really is. 

“Right, here we go. Careful though, the floors can get slippery,” Jon says as they reach the end of the kennel hallway. He opens the door to another sparse room, though much smaller with the notable feature of a large industrial-sized sink. 

Ryan stands at the skink, rubber apron on over his shirt and his sleeves rolled up over his elbows. He has the faucet attachment, a large silver tube attached to a sprayer head, draped over his shoulders as he struggles to soap up an energetic dog roughly the size of a microwave. It’s a black and brown mutt that whines and wriggles free of Ryan’s grip to shake itself and spray water everywhere. Ryan rubs his face with the side of his arm and mutters something under his breath that Bob can’t quite make out that sounds like “if you’d just cooperate,” before catching hold of the dog again.

Jon’s big smile is back. He raps on the door frame with two knuckles. “Yo, Ross, you got company.”

“Tell Spencer to fuck off,” Ryan snaps, not turning around. 

“He’s not as good looking as Spence,” Jon replies. The tone is supposed to be joking but there’s an edge of something in it. Bob’s not sure what but it’s the first rough patch he’s seen on the man so far. 

“Yeah like you’re one to-” Ryan begins, huffy with frustration as he glances briefly over his shoulder, no doubt to say something insulting then stops. The dog takes this moment of hesitation to wriggle free of Ryan’s grip and shake itself again, splattering soapy water all over Ryan’s face, neck and shirt. 

Jon laughs and Bob does too; he can’t help it. Ryan never looks like this when he gets home from work. He always gets home put together, although his version of together looks like an artist living with six other bohemian hippies on the Haight in some free-love shelter during the summer of ‘69. Now he looks like a very confused half-drowned rat. Bob manages to stop laughing before Jon, mostly because the desire to push Ryan’s dripping bangs out of his eyes is a little more intense than the amusement. 

He doesn’t give in though because he doesn’t know this Jon guy. He seems nice enough but public displays aren’t something Bob does in front of people he’s not familiar with. Ryan’s too busy trying to get the dog back under control for that. 

“A hand maybe Walker?” 

Jon disappears from Bob’s side and catches the dog in firm hands so that Ryan can rinse the soap out of its thick fur. They seem a little overwhelmed but sure of themselves. Ryan looks pissed off but confident. His movements are swift and efficient. It’s kind of hot actually. And he waits until after the water’s running off the dog clear before taking the attachment and flicking it at Jon, soaking the front of his shirt. 

“Dude.”

Ryan rolls his eyes and puts the attachment back in the sink, one hand still on the dog. “That’s what you get for fucking with me.”

“I was going to take this one for you so you could show your guest around,” Jon says, plucking at the wet front of his shirt. “But forget it. I want our new resident dry as the freaking desert before going back in the kennel, man. Seriously.”

“You’re not actually a nice guy,” Ryan shoots back. “It’s all just an act and you’re fooling no one.”

“Dry and fluffy.”

“Can I hang out and help?” Bob asks. He honestly can't remember the last time he worked a straight job. He’s covered the register in one of the restaurants the Ieros own a few times but that hardly qualifies him to take care of dogs. Of course neither does breaking jaws, dislocating shoulders, and disposing of bodies. He casts a glance over at Jon. “I mean, if you don’t mind me helping out? I like dogs and I’m pretty good with them.” Frank's dogs Mama and Peppers always liked him at least.

Jon pointed to a large cabinet on the right wall. “Towels are over there, dude. Ryan, someone called about twenty minutes ago about a litter of kittens they can’t keep. They should be here in about five minutes so I gotta go man the desk. You’re good?”

Ryan gives him his best droll stare, which is impressive considering he’s still got a handle on a wet dog. “How long have I been working here?”

“I know, I know. I’m just checking. It’s a boss thing. Anyway, nice to meet you Bob.”

“Likewise.” Bob calls. He grabs a few towels out of the cabinet before Ryan can get any more soaked. 

The rags are clearly donations, old, mismatched, and threadbare. He doesn’t actually speak to Ryan until he’s standing beside him at the sink, their shoulders centimeters apart. He hands Ryan one of the towels and asks, “What’s his name?”

“Hers,” Ryan corrects, draping the towel over his shoulder and giving the dog an analytic look. She looks back at him, her wet face making her look extra sad. “Help me lift her?” The dog is medium sized and Ryan could handle it himself, Bob’s sure. But he gently helps Ryan lift the dog out of the sink and onto the concrete floor because Ryan doesn’t ask for much and when he does, Bob’s shit at saying no.

They settle on the floor next to each other without a word. She shakes herself again before Ryan drapes his towel over her back and begins to rub her dry.

She looks up at Bob, a little happier now, her tail wagging as Ryan works on her fur. “So she’s nameless?”

“Yeah. Some guy found her behind a Mexican restaurant and brought her here. We don’t euthanize so,” he shrugs. “She’ll be okay here until we can find somewhere for her. If no one picks her up in the next week, Jon’ll name her after whoever he’s listening to this week. I think he’s on a Kasabian kick so, that’s a fair bet.” Ryan lifts his gaze to meet Bob’s and his brown eyes look almost as big as the dog’s. “What’s up Bob?”

“Had kind of a slow day. Went to the bank and wanted to swing by and see if you were up for dinner later.”

“Tonight?” Ryan asks. He pushes his wet hair back off his forehead with his wrist while he keeps toweling the mutt with the other hand. “Like a date?”

“No. Not like a date. On a date. I don’t know how it works exactly but I’ll pay, we can get dinner and maybe go to a movie.”

Ryan smiles a little at that. He doesn’t look up from the dog but Bob can see his eyes light up under his wet bangs. “You don’t know?”

“Yeah. I, uh, I’m not really,” Bob breaks off. He shouldn’t be nervous. He’s been with Ryan for almost five years but it’s kind of embarrassing. “I’m not an expert on this.”

“This being dating.”

“Well, yeah.”

“It’s not rocket science, Bob,” Ryan teases.

“No. Neither is riding a bike but if you’ve never done it, you’re gonna wipe out.”

Ryan lifts his head at that and tilts his head to the side. “You’ve never been on a date?” His eyebrows draw together and the dog follows his gaze so he’s staring at two pairs of large curious brown eyes. “How have you never been on a date? That’s kind of high school 101.”

High school 101 was kind of hard to attain when you didn’t finish your freshman year. Bob was stealing car stereos for cigarettes and food when most guys his age were concerned with who they were going to ask to prom. He doesn’t really talk about his teen years much to Ryan. To anyone really but when Ryan’s asked about his past, Bob tells him things that happened before his mom died or after he met Frank. It’s not that he doesn’t want to tell Ryan, it’s just that it’s kind of a downer. There’s still a hint of a smile on Ryan’s lips and Bob doesn’t want to bring it down. 

So he goes with another side of the truth. “The people I’ve been with, they’re not exactly date people.” Brian probably would’ve laughed in his face at the idea of wasting money on a movie when they could sneak in the exit. He’d been practical that way. 

Ryan snorts. “And I am date people?” There’s an edge to his voice all of a sudden, not as sharp as it could be but familiar and painful. 

“Yeah. You are.” Bob reaches out with the other towel and pushes Ryan’s hair back off his face. He ruffles hair a little and Ryan allows it for half a moment before he bats his hand away. 

“Sure. Pizza and beer maybe.”

He drapes the towel over Ryan’s shoulders – he’ll need it when he’s done – and tucks a knee up this chest. He rests his chin on it and smiles. “Fuck you, you’re caviar and roses.”

“You’re a dork and caviar’s kind of gross.”

“I know. Who decided fish eggs were upscale?”

“Someone in Russia. I could do pizza later though.”

“Pizza sounds good.”

“And the new thing with Jude Law’s out.”

“He’s still making movies?”

“They can’t seem to make him stop.” Ryan climbs to his feet and pulls a nylon leash out of a pocket. He hooks it on the nondescript black collar that Bob hadn’t even noticed in the mess of black and brown fur around the dog's neck. Then he holds out a hand and pulls Bob up.

Bob doesn’t let go of his hand once he’s standing. In fact, he laces their fingers together. “You didn’t argue with me on the roses thing, Ryan.”

Ryan shrugs and looks down at their joined hands. “Yeah well, that part you got right. I like roses.”

“Good to know.”

“If you show up with an armful of them, we’re going to have to have words though,” Ryan warns.

“You seem more like a single rose on a long stem sort of guy.”

“Shut up.” 

Bob watches him bite briefly on his lower lip and takes that as a yes. He can’t help but smile as Ryan tightens his grip and drags him out of the little back room and into the kennel.

~*~*~

Ryan hasn't gone on a date in years but he can remember the last one. It had been with a cute girl he'd met in his Short Story class. He can't remember her name or her face but he can remember she had short auburn hair and she liked to wear skirts that were just a little too long to be conventionally sexy but still showed off her legs.

His financial aid hadn't covered much so they had sandwiches in the union and hung out on the green. He had kissed her in the grass and walked her home. She'd told him he should call her later but it had been the end of spring semester. They had two weeks until finals and things got busy. 

Then Spencer was coming into town the following week to interview with admissions. At the end of that weekend everything was in pieces. Hell, by the time Ryan had gotten himself a lawyer, he'd forgotten her name.

This time Bob pays because he insists but other than that, he is totally the girl. Ryan drives – even though it’s Bob's car – because he knows where he's going. He picks the restaurant (even if it is just a pizzeria) and the movie. He even pulls out Bob's chair which is awesome because it makes Bob blush. Ryan's only seen it a couple of times but he likes it. Maybe if he gets braver, if he can break the impulse to check around him for judging eyes that are waiting for weakness, he'll kiss his cheek mid-blush one day and see if it makes Bob's skin as warm as fucking does.

This time he doesn't. He just enjoys the pink under Bob's beard and plants his elbows on the wood tabletop. Sometimes Ryan forgets that Bob can be shy, can get nervous and flustered. Bob is so synonymous with strength and stability in his head that the vulnerability always catches him off guard.

"You're staring," Bob says as they wait for their pizza. 

Ryan shrugs and drags a finger through the condensation on his glass mug of beer. He doesn't drink that often. He doesn't like to feel like he's going anywhere near losing control anymore. But he's with Bob and they're getting pizza for fuck's sake. It's required. "I like your face. Sue me."

Bob looks flustered for a second, then smiles."You don't want me to do that. I've got Iero Family legal council on speed dial."

"I'm trembling."

"You should be. The guy sweated like a seven-hundred pound man locked in a sauna for three days through my whole trial. He smelled like old dead feet and managed to get me a fifth of the time I deserved. Terrifying."

Ryan wrinkles. "See, I was going for sexy and you ruined it with the feet thing."

"You don’t have to go for sexy, Ryan. You're already there. You, like, you live there." 

Okay, that's a hell of a line. Or it would be if Bob didn't mean it in complete earnestness. Ryan doesn't get a chance to respond to that right away because the waitress shows up with their pizza. By the time she leaves he's got something suitably flirty to say in reply. 

They eat. They flirt. When they leave, Ryan takes Bob's hand because Bob never reaches out first. Ryan appreciates that after spending years being the one who followed Bob. He had to. Even after Gabe was gone, the structure of D Block was so firmly in place not even the combined will of Pete Wentz and Frank Iero could shake it.

Out here, though, he gets to lead the date. He's the guy, which Ryan knows is a sexist thing to think but he doesn't care when they're sitting in the movie theater, shoulders pressed together like normal people. He doesn't have room in the lockboxes in his brain for political correctness. He needs the space for things like this, like being at ease with Bob. That takes work he doesn't have the effort to spare. 

"So that was a date huh?" Bob asks that night, fingers laced as they walk up the stoop to Ryan's apartment. 

Ryan knows that Bob has a place of his own. They could have gone there. Maybe they should have considering how things have been with Spencer. It's been over a week since they spoke. And Bob did offer. 

Ryan isn't ready though. He shares it with Spencer but after a year the apartment is his. It's his space. The bed is his nest. He can let other people in but it's his territory. It's one of the only places on the planet he feels even remotely safe. Going into someone else's, even Bob's, isn't something he's ready for yet.

So he says no. He says no because Bob understands that he needs to feel safe. Like this he can take the lead with Bob and he needs it. He needs it so that he can feel comfortable backing Bob into the door frame and saying, "Yes, that was a date and this is the part where I invite you up for coffee."

"You don’t have coffee," Bob points out, letting himself be crowded. He smiles up at Ryan. "I broke your coffee machine, remember?"

"Then the coffee probably isn't literal," Ryan replies in a conspiratory whisper. He's fishing for his keys as he speaks.

Bob laughs. "It's code for sex isn't it?"

"It might be," Ryan concedes. Then he kisses Bob and unlocks the door at the same time – which is pretty fucking impressive thanks. Bob grins into the kiss as they stumble inside.

He feels seventeen again. Seventeen and hungry and happy and young. He can't remember the last time he felt young because he definitely didn’t feel this young when he actually was seventeen. They crash into wall twice and the banister on the stairs once, laughing at the awkward pain. 

They trip up three flights of stairs to get to the apartment but make it with all their limbs intact. Ryan pulls back with a gasp, groping with his keys. 

The knob turns before the key slips in and Ryan jerks back. The door is unlocked. 

"Ryan?" Bob is panting. His pupils are blown leaving only a thin blue ring of his iris visible. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah. I just-" He stops and shakes his head. "I think Spencer's home."

Bob sighs. "Oh. Yeah. We should probably not make out in the living room then." 

He'd rather not go in at all. Conflict is a turn off. Ryan almost laughs at the thought because he used to get off on screaming matches. He used to have the best make up sex with his first girlfriend Tarah back in high school. Now it just makes his skin cold and itchy. He doesn’t want to go in. He wants to stay out here in the hallway where Bob's beard is soft under his hand and he doesn’t have to meet Spencer's sad puppy eyes. 

"We could go back to your place?" Ryan offers because he really, really just wants to have sex. Really. He wants this to be the normal end to a normal date where he bends his normal mafia hitman boyfriend over the edge of the mattress - even if it’s not his - and fucks him slow and deep until they're both sweaty and shaking. Why is that too much to ask from the universe? Ryan's pretty sure he's earned it.

"You don’t have any clothes at my place. Two hours away." Bob kisses his cheek. "Ryan, let's just go inside. It's ten feet to your bedroom. You don't even have to look at him."

Ryan huffs. This is reasonable for most people. From Bob, it’s downright pushy. So he droops a little and sighs. "But I'm not going to want to fuck you once we get there."

"You don’t really want to anymore now," Bob points out. 

He's right of course. Ryan's hard ons are like a deer during hunting season. Step on a branch that snaps too loud and it's gone.

Not that any of this is news. Bob learned the ABC's of Ryan's sexual dysfunction years ago, squeezed onto that single cot in the dark. He's never complained once. And because he's too good a guy to fucking exist, as far as Ryan can tell, he always seems happy when they're done no matter how it ends. Sometimes Ryan hates Bob for not sounding even disappointed when Ryan can't be what he wants to be sexually. Most of the time, when Ryan hates Bob it's for being right. "Fine, asshole."

"Please. Stop. You're melting me with your dirty talk." 

Ryan rolls his eyes at Bob. Twice. Just to make sure he gets the point. "You're an idiot."

"No. Don't. I don’t want to spontaneously orgasm in front of your best friend."

"That just- ugh. No." Ryan says because that's not a mental image he needs. It shocks a laugh out of him and makes him feel like he can do this. 

He can go inside and walk right past Spencer, like he's not there. He is a fucking Oscar-worthy actor and he can act as if it doesn't matter that Spencer looks at him and sees the creature he's locked deep in his mental vault so he can to be a person. Like he doesn't care that walking past Spencer reminds him of being that broken whore on his knees with come in his hair and lipstick on his mouth in a way being with Bob never seems to, even though he was there, he saw it all. 

He reaches back and takes Bob's hand anyway when he opens the door of the apartment. It's a weakness but whatever. He doesn't care. He chooses to reclassify the move as 'dragging his boyfriend to his bedroom' instead of 'clinging for support'. He can do that damnit. It is date night and that is a totally valid thing to do. 

Ryan does his best not to look at Spencer, off in the far corner of the living room nose-deep in one of his huge law books. He can't help but scan the whole room. It's like trying not to think about the color red or elephants once you've been told not to. Since he's looking, he can't help but notice the fucking guitar on the coffee table.

It's a sea foam blue electric that looks a few years old but not too much worse for the wear. Ryan stares at it like he's just walked into a strip club and come face to face with the most beautiful woman and gorgeous man in the world, both dying to give him a lap dance. He might even be holding his breath.

It's hard not to. Ryan can't actually remember the last time he saw a guitar in person, let alone held one. A decade. A fucking decade at least. His was gone when he got out, along with everything his dad's attorney got rid of when he died. His hand twitches on Bob's wrist with the old instinct to pick it up. 

He wants. He wants like he wants the nightmares to stop. He wants like he wants the last ten years of his life back. He wants like he wants to be able to think of Bob fucking him without having a panic attack. But he can't have any of that. What he can do, if he lets himself, is cross the room and pick up the guitar. He wonders if he'd even remember how to play. 

And Bob, being Bob, goes "Spencer, I didn’t know you play guitar. That's really cool. "

"I don't," Spencer says not looking up. "Ryan does." 

"Yeah?" Bob seems delighted. 

"We had a band in high school. We weren't half bad actually."

That makes Bob look over his shoulder and smile and goddamn it. Of course he's happy about this. He's Bob. "That’s so awesome. I played drums in middle school but I kind of missed the garage band phase."

Bob's told him stories, about his mom and his dog and the school he used to go to outside of Chicago. They had years of nights where there was nothing to do after lights out but talk. He talked about how when he was a kid, he wanted to be an astronaut. He talked about his mom a lot. Ryan's favorite story ever is about the time she and Bob baked two hundred cupcakes in a night because he forgot he'd promised they'd bring them for a school bake sale when he was eight. Sometimes, Ryan forgets that he hasn't known Bob his entire life, that there were nearly thirty years before they met that Ryan wasn't a part of. 

Spencer perks up at the mention of drums. "You're a drummer? That's fucking awesome man, me too. Or, I used to be. I haven’t played in forever."

"No." Ryan says, shaking his head because this is not happening. After all this shit, Spencer and Bob are not going to fucking bond like they're all trying to be friends here. That's not the way the world works and Ryan's not fucking having it. "No and no, Spencer. Shut the hell up."

"You used to love to play, Ryan, and I just thought-"

"You just thought what? You buy me a pawned guitar and that makes everything okay?"

"No, I-"

Ryan doesn't let him finish. He doesn't want to hear it. "You can't wave a goddamn wand and fix me. I'm broken, okay? I know that. I'm fine with it but your pity isn't glue and fuck you for thinking it is." 

"I didn't think it would fix you, Ryan. I thought maybe you missed your guitar is all."

"Oh yeah." He folds his arms over his chest and glares. "After a fucking year I'd miss it now." 

Spencer drops into the love seat and sighs. It's not a defeated noise but it is definitely tired. Spencer is tired. Ryan finds that he cares how exhausted Spencer looks more than he should considering how fucking angry he still is.

"No, I thought you fucking always missed it. You stopped writing for ten years. I know what that means to you. Jesus, I'm not stupid. Jon had one he wasn’t going to use anymore so it wasn't that expensive. Just take it and play it. You don’t even have to say thank you. Just use it okay?"

It's on the tip of Ryan's tongue to tell Spencer to fuck himself. It would feel amazing because he's spent so long not being angry at Spencer. He's spent what feels like forever not being angry because it wasn't his fault, because he was Ryan's reason and he couldn't resent him for that. He could pour it out right here, right now.

The venom that he could throw all over Spencer stops in his throat and chokes him. There's a horrible moment where he can't breathe. It feels like phantom fingers wrapping around his throat and squeezing. 

So instead, he doesn't say anything. He turns on his heel and walks into the bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him. The bang is satisfying but it's not enough. He just stands in the middle of the room, panting, his thumb pressed to his lower lip.

The impulse to dart into the bathroom is like a spasm, involuntary and painful. He's got some lipstick under the sink, some eyeliner taped to the back of the toilet. He could put on his mask and hide. He wouldn't have to come out and once he got far enough under, none of this would feel like anything. 

It would all just be empty space and cold, clear thought. It'd be so easy. Easier than trying to get drunk or go out and find a hit, safer too. He's ferreted through the stacks of towels under the sink and has the tube in his hand when there's a knock on the door. He pockets it and climbs to his feet.

Bob's on the other side of the door. "Ryan?"

"What?"

"Can you let me in?" And doesn’t that just sum Bob right the fuck up? 

Ryan drops his forehead to the door with a soft thump. "I don't know."

"Well, try the lock." It's a gentle tease that doesn't coddle. 

So Ryan fumbles blindly for the doorknob. He doesn't need to look away from the grain of the door to undo the lock. "Okay."

"Can I let myself in?"

Ryan shrugs even though Bob can't see him. "If you want."

The hinges rattle. Bob knocks again. "You're leaned against the door. Let me know if you move okay?"

Fucking Bob. Fucking patient loving Bob. Sometimes how good he is to Ryan makes him want hit him right in his bearded face. He knows that's not right but he can't help it. It's not fair that Bob can handle Ryan’s own shit better than he can. 

He's never really been the violent type, though. It's not his style. If it were, he'd be living a completely different life today. But this is the one he's got so he sighs and moves out of the way of the door. He leans against the wall with a thump and sinks to sit on the floor. 

Bob joins him on the floor a moment later. The weight of him sitting against the door is as much for Ryan's peace of mind as it is for convenience’s sake. More, knowing Bob. 

"If you ask me if I want to talk about it, I will fucking punch you."

"Okay."

Ryan drops his head onto Bob's shoulder. "I'm shit at this."

"Yeah, I noticed that." It's said lightly and it makes Ryan want to smile because Bob's nothing if not honest."You try though. That’s all anyone can ask."

"It's really not." Ryan says because it is definitely less than Spencer is asking for. Spencer wants his best friend back, the one who didn't need words to say everything that needed to be said. 

"Okay, then lets agree that it's all I ask. And don’t insult me by saying I should be asking for more, all right? Because with both know that's bullshit."

Ryan shrugs against Bob's shoulder. He doesn't argue but he can't agree either. Saying so out loud would make the crazy roiling through his brain seem acceptable and it's not. It's just fucking not. Bob's always settled for his shit.

"I can feel you thinking."

"I'm not responsible for your feelings." Ryan mutters. That makes Bob laugh which is good. It makes Ryan feel warm from the tips of his fingers up through his chest.

"No you're not." He pauses. "You're not responsible for Spencer either."

"Remember the 'me punching you' thing? I can extend that if pushed." 

"Terrified. I'm quaking with fear." There's a pause where the only sound is their breathing and then Bob asks "Will you play for me sometime?"

"What, guitar?"

"Yeah. There's a perfectly good one in the living room. I'd like to hear you sometime."

The immediate impulse is to say no. Since Ryan found the word again, he's gotten a little addicted to it. He stops himself though, because this is Bob asking. Bob will always accept it when he says no but he hates to tell him. So instead he just sighs and shrugs. "Maybe later."

"Sure. If you want, you don’t even have to bring it with you Friday. Frank's got about eight guitars and he'd love to play with you. "

That makes Ryan stop. "Frank?" He'd somehow forgotten that he was once again living in a world with Frank Iero in it. He was more an abstract presence when he wasn’t sitting at a table in the rec room of D-Block, quietly manipulating their little world in concert with Pete. 

"Yeah. I've got dinner with him and Jamia, Friday."

Ryan finds himself nodding because Bob never asks him for _anything_. He's clearly asking for this; even if he doesn't say 'please' or 'will you' the request is still there. It costs him to agree but not as much as it would to say no. 

It's been forever since Ryan last saw Frank. Now that he thinks about him, lets himself really remember the man, he can admit that he'd like to see him. He just doesn't want to see all the shit that Frank could pull up.

"Thank you." Bob reaches out and squeezes Ryan's knee. They sit there for awhile just breathing and when they finally rise, Ryan can barely feel the anger and frustration that had tied itself up on him. He sprawls across Bob and pretends that he's not fingering chords across the skin of his chest as he drifts towards sleep. 

~*~*~

Ryan is sitting on the counter in the lobby, flipping through the files for the latest round of kittens dropped off at the shelter. It's busy work – filling in dates, checking boxes, signing at the bottom of pages. He's getting lost in the drudge work so that he doesn’t have to worry about dinner at Frank's tonight. 

Or he's trying to. Jon is glaring at him and it's really distracting. Almost as distracting as the silent treatment he's been getting from Jon ever since Bob came in.

He sighs and drops the files onto his lap. "What?"

"You gotta stop it already. I'm going to have to make him start paying rent, man."

Ryan's got his best game face on – the one he had pulled up more times than he can count in Janick. It is flat and doesn’t say anything. Ryan's found that nothing is usually scarier than any 'don't fuck with me' sentiment could be. It's what made Bob so damn effective. "We're not having this conversation."

"Yes, we are. Ryan, if you'd just talk to him, then I could stop looking at his sad face staring at the wall of my house."

"I really think you should stay out of this."

"Ryan, you know, when you were…" Jon trails off, clearly looking for the right words. Like there is any gentle way to talk about the last ten years of his life. 

"In prison?" Fuck it, Ryan can say it. He's not afraid of the words. 

It's hard to be scared of shit like the words he gets to choose when he knows what actual fear is. It’s being held against cold concrete and knowing that you're powerless over what's going to happen to your body next. It's sitting in Dr. Salpeter's office, waiting for test results after the latest impatient inmate wouldn’t give him enough time to put a fucking condom on before using him like a blow-up doll, and wondering if this time will be the time the test comes back positive for HIV. It's getting raped with a metal pipe and then beaten in the face with it, praying to die. It's waking up and realizing that he wasn't dead, he was just in hell because in a few days, he‘d have to go back out into the block where the cycle would start all over. 

"Yeah. When you were in prison, who do you think he talked to about trying to get your appeal through? Whose couch do you think he curled up on when he cried himself sick with guilt? Who do you think got baked with him every time he drove all the way up to Janick only to have you refuse to see him, man? I'll give you a hint, it wasn't one of his sisters."

"Wow." Ryan opens and closes his mouths a few times. He's had a lot of crazy conversations since this is near the top in terms of sheer ridiculousness. "Your life, Jon Walker, it's so fucking hard. How did you ever manage?"

"I'm not comparing his pain to yours, okay?"

"Really? Because that's sure what it sounds like."

"Yeah, it could sound like a fucking hallelujah chorus but what I'm saying is that the guy loves you." Jon stops and looks down at the floor. There are bits of fur that seem to find their way onto the linoleum no matter how many times they vacuum or sweep. Jon stares at the nearest tuft of grey hair like it holds the answers to all the universe's problems in its tangled clusters. "Really, like soul-mate, reincarnated together loves you.

Oh, fuck. "Jon."

Jon doesn't look up. He shrugs his shoulders and rubs his right bicep with his left hand. "So maybe you should cut him a fucking break before you break his fucking heart even more." 

Fuck, fuck, fuck. This is not how this fight was supposed to end. Ryan sets his paperwork down on the counter next to him. This isn't going to be a short conversation, especially not with Jon's heart in his eyes like that. 

Ryan wasn't that good at dealing with other people's feelings before he went to Janick. After almost a decade on the inside, even with Bob and his strangely high volume of sanity, Ryan's practically retarded about it. But he knows what he's looking at. He's seen it in the mirror back when he was trying, desperately, to shove memories of Bob back into his box. "Jon, he's not in love with me."

Jon shrugs again, clearly disbelieving. "I like Bob, Ry, I really do. He seems like a nice guy, aside from the whole mobster thing." Like the Family connections are nothing. "And it’s clear he loves you stupid, that you love him back. But that doesn't make the way Spencer feels go away."

"I'm hallucinating. We're not actually having a talk about the crush on me you so wrongly think Spencer has." Ryan laughs. He wants to snap his fingers in Jon's face but he doesn’t think it would work. It'd probably take one of those ACME anvils to the head to shake him out of his own stupidity. 

"It's not funny and it's not a crush. He picked up and moved here to be near you. He built his life around getting a job that would help you. If that's not love I don’t know what is."

"I didn't say Spencer doesn't love me." 

Jon finally meets his eyes again. Oh, he is angry now. That’s new. Ryan can't remember ever seeing Jon actually genuinely angry. "You selfish… you know sometimes, I want to smack the shit out of you." 

Ryan hates himself for the way his whole body tenses up at that. Jon wouldn't hit him, would never hit him, anymore than Bob or Spencer would. But the threat of violence, it makes his blood turn to ice in his veins, so cold that's he's frozen from the tips of his toes to the top of his head. 

He can tell the moment Jon realizes what he's done. "Oh, god, I'm sorry."

"It's okay." 

"No it's not. I shouldn't have-"

"No, it's fine." And it is, in a way. Jon doesn't look at him like a victim, not at all, to the point where he could forget completely. 

"God, I am an asshole." Jon wraps his arms tight himself. 

Ryan wishes he could give Jon a hug as he gives his full attention back to the fur on the floor. He just can't. He's too fucking pathetically weak. He flounders for words instead. "Yeah you are but right now you're being an asshole about Spencer."

Jon loosens his hold on himself. He's far more comfortable focusing on Spencer but that is absolutely no surprise. Not anymore. "Yeah." He takes a deep breath before he says, "Ryan, you've got to forgive him eventually."

"He treated Bob like shit, Jon. He treated Bob like shit and he made me-" he stops because the next word out of his mouth was going to be "feel" and no. No, not an option. He doesn't have enough space to pull his feelings out of their neat little boxes. Not at work. Not when he has to see Frank later and all that brings with it. 

Jon gives him a long look. His hand twitches, no doubt with the urge to touch. Jon puts his hands on everyone, even Ryan. He communicates as much through squeezes on the shoulder or arm as he does with words. Only this is an argument and Ryan's _Hands Off_ sign is flashing in neon. "He told me what he said."

"Then you know that he crossed the fucking line." 

He's met with a patient sigh and that is one hell of a reversal. All the fucking patient bastards around him. He's tired of being the only one with a complete inability to keep cool. The only thing helping Ryan keep any grip on his anger is the way Jon slipped up just a moment ago. "He made a mistake. He's scared, Ry."

That’s fucking rich. _Spencer_ is scared. Like he was the one who had his ass and mouth doled out like Halloween candy and was used as a speed bag on a regular basis for years. Years. "Yeah? What else did he tell you?"

For the first time in this incredibly inappropriate conversation, Jon's gaze flicks towards the door. Yeah, because they’re in the front and anyone could walk in of the street – some soccer mom with her seven year old daughter getting their first puppy or a little old lady looking for a new mouser for her mostly empty house. 

Maybe not right for work. But instead of letting it drop, Jon goes to door, locks it and props the "out to lunch" sign up in the window, never mind that it’s barely 10am.

"We're really doing this."

"Yeah, man, we are."

Fine. Fucking great. Ryan deserves a medal or something for this but whatever. Jon is his boss. He's gotten good at taking orders in the last decade. He brings his thumb to his lip gently and when he pulls it away, the lack of pigment is unsettling but the gesture calms him anyway so he does it again. He can feel the ridges of his fingerprint against his lip as he says "So? What've you got?"

"This isn't easy to talk about," Jon mumbles. 

Ryan just stares back in response. It wasn't fucking easy to live through so no shit. 

Only Jon is a pretty brave guy because he actually meets Ryan's hundred-yard, there-is-no-one-home-who-cares stare before he takes a deep breath and he continues talking. "I know you were, um, raped."

Wow. That may be the first time anyone who doesn’t have the title Doctor in front of their name has actually said that word to his face. That's what happened of course, starting with the guys who cornered him in the kitchens and all the way down to those last few moments with Gabe before he blacked out but no one says it. Pete had just said "sorry" over and over until it stopped being a word. Bob doesn't call it anything because he doesn't push it, just lets Ryan talk about it or not – and it’s almost always not – in terms he picks. Hell, in his head Ryan calls it "attacked" most of the time. Jon though, Jon just came out and said it. It says a lot about him, most of it good. Enough to make Ryan actually listen where he was just waiting for his turn to fight back before. 

"And, uh, Spencer, he uh, he said that you were treated pretty horrible on top of that. But the only thing I was told about in as so words was that thing with that cult guy, the one who ran the Cobra church or whatever it was called. I had to get Spencer to the hospital to see you because he was so upset he couldn't drive. I was there too, the whole time, before I even met you."

Okay. That he didn't know. "So I guess a nurse told you."

"A doctor told Spencer because he's your next of kin. I was just with him. Then he talked to some priest who said it wasn't the first time and, Spencer. He just cracked." Jon shakes his head and looks away. He's definitely not looking at Ryan anymore. "It was awful. Like his insides just folded in on themselves."

"Okay."

"No. He wasn't. I mean, he wasn't okay when we first met in school but ever since, he's like this ghost of himself. And I just-" Jon stops.

"And you just don't like seeing him like that."

"Yeah."

"Okay." Ryan can understand that. Spencer spent a massive chunk of their youth protecting him – from his dad, from his empty house, from the life he'd been given that landed him with a split lip or a bruised cheekbone more than it should've. What Spencer still, after all these years as friends and that Ryan spent in Janick for both of them, doesn’t seem to understand is that the need to protect goes both ways. 

Ever since they were children, Ryan's wanted to take care of Spencer's hurts as much as Spencer does his. Just, before the bust, before his life went pear-shaped, there wasn't all that much to protect Spencer from. He had his parents and the twins and the sense of place that made it easy to feel safe. For Ryan, the illusion of safety dissolved pinned to a filthy linoleum floor with his pants around his ankles and unforgiving steel slammed brutally inside him. 

Spencer's broke later and he still hasn't scarred over from that particular wound yet. Which sucks for him, really. Ryan just doesn't have the spare emotions needed to help him. He wishes he does but he just. Fucking. Doesn't. 

All the extra pieces of himself got used up years ago. The used remnants are in boxes in the back of his head. He's not testing the locks now. 

"That's it?"

"Yeah. I can't help him with any of this, Jon. He wasn't supposed to know in the first place and neither were you. I just can't."

"I get that."

He doesn't but whatever. He's trying. "If you get that then you take care of it."

"Ryan-"

"Jon. I can't do shit right now, all right? I can go back to work and I can file those immunizations but I can't do anything for Spencer right now." He picks the file back up and waves it between them. "Of the two of us, I'm not the one who's in love with the asshole so you know, that guy should do the comforting. Not me."

The only response that earns him is silence. That is a good deal better than Ryan was expecting after that clusterfuck of a conversation. Jon is looking at him with something that could be understanding.

"I'm going to go back to work now, boss," he says, adopting the same tone of friendly respect that Bob always manages to put into the word when addressing Frank. He leaves Jon with that and takes the paperwork back to the kennel. 

He settles on the floor by the medium-sized rescue he's definitely, absolutely, 100% not thinking of as "his". He whispers a hello to her and she huffs out a happy sound in reply. Then she sighs, settling down on her dog bed, nose pressed against his leg through the grate of her kennel, breathing on his pant leg as Ryan gets back to work.

~*~*~

It's been a very long time since Ryan was completely alone for any length of time. Right after his release from Janick, Spencer was always around. Later when he wasn’t, Ryan was at work and then…Then Bob found him again.

There's been Bob for the last couple of months. When Bob drops him off after dinner at Frank and Jamia's - heading to a meeting that Ryan knows better than to ask questions about - Ryan is left in the silence of the apartment, staring down that sea-foam green guitar in his living room so he turns on the TV. 

He cleans the kitchen even though he hasn’t used it today. Frank made vegetarian lasagna and garlic bread slices bigger than the palm of Ryan's hand at the house he shares with his wife. Jamia was hilarious, sharp and completely unafraid to tell embarrassing stories about Frank or Bob or the two of them together. She'd also pulled him aside after dinner for what had been the closest thing to the "hurt him and I'll kill you" speech Ryan ever expected to get.

"I've known him fifteen years," she'd said. "Never once did he look at anyone like he looks at you. Just don't take it for granted."

"I won't." Ryan promised and she had nodded. 

"Good. Welcome to the Family then." She shook her head, laughing. "I give you six weeks before you wish you could leave us crazy fucks." 

Then she'd nearly tripped over one of her and Frank's many dogs. They'd laughed at it while the little dog barked angrily up at her until she picked it up. The whole thing made Ryan wonder if maybe, possibly, he should mention to Bob that the rescue from behind that Mexican restaurant still hasn't been placed. 

He thinks about the way Jamia had smiled at him while he works, not about the guitar. When the sink is sparkling, Ryan goes in and strips the sheets off the bed so that when Bob comes over tomorrow they'll be clean. Then he realizes that they don't have a vacuum or broom so he has officially run out of things to do. 

The guitar is still waiting for him when the chores are done. Patiently waiting for him to stop resisting. Ryan stands barefoot, in a pair of boxers and one of the shirts Bob left, staring back at it for a good long while before he caves in to its siren call. He picks it up by the neck, because he is just not that strong, if he ever was. 

He folds himself up onto the couch with the guitar in his lap. He doesn't bother tuning it. There're no amps and this is an electric so it’s not like there's anything to be heard. Instead, he spends his energy relearning the strings and frets of an instrument with the same careful focus that he's been using to rediscover Bob's body since his parole. 

The calluses on Ryan’s fingers have been gone for a long time. The muscle memory's barely there anymore either. This is not like the riding a bike shtick, where you never forget. This is more like riding a unicycle – he knows he can do it because he's done it. He just has to find his center of gravity, his skill set.

He plays the early Blink catalogue because those are rote. Those he knows in his sleep and sometimes, when it was bad and he didn’t think he could take one more hand on him, he'd go over the chord progressions of "Adam's Song" and "What's My Age Again" in his head rather than feel one more person touching him. That had stopped working eventually but the memory of the music was still there. 

He's playing "Girl at the Rock Show" when the door opens. They live in an old building so there's no missing it when the lock turns over and the hinge swings wide with a creak. Ryan looks up with a frown at Spencer who stands frozen in the doorway. 

"Oh. Um, I can just-" He waves out at the hallway. "I'm sorry. I can go."

Ryan has spent the last ten years of his life exhausted and hurting. Holding this guitar for the last couple hours, he hadn't been. Spencer had given him that. Spencer had tried so fucking hard to give him as much as he could; Jon was right about that. Now Spencer is looking at him with wounded eyes and just -"No, fuck, Spencer come on."

"Come on what? I said I was sorry, Ryan. That's all I can do except go."

"Don't. Fight me, Spencer. You used to fight me."

"Things used to be different."

"No they're not. Jesus. I didn't- I didn't give up my whole fucking life to lose you in the process."

"Except that's what you did. Every week for years Father Ray would take meetings on Family Day because you wouldn't talk to me, wouldn't see me. Now," he leans heavily against the door and does that thing that Jon had talked about, where he folds behind his eyes. "Now you might as well still be miles away from me for all that you'll talk to me."

"I can't talk to you about everything."

"You can't talk to me about _anything_. I'm your best friend, do you get that? I'm supposed to be here for you and I haven't- I've fucking failed at that every time I could've helped you."

Ryan stares at him. "What do you think you could do exactly?"

"I don't know, Ryan! What does Bob do?"

"You cannot be fucking serious." Ryan finally sets the guitar down. This is too much. "Bob and I are together, Spence. You know this. You don't- You're not, you know-" If Jon turns out to be right Ryan's going to have a stroke or something. Can that even happen before a person hits thirty? "We dealt with this shit in like tenth grade didn't we?"

Spencer blinks at him three, four, five times before he twitches. He laughs, hard with an edge of hysteria that makes his amusement ugly, and shakes his head. "You did not just ask me that."

"Then I shouldn't need to explain the fucking difference between you and Bob on top of everything else."

"I don't; okay, stop. I just - can we start over?"

"No. There's too much shit here, Spence."

"Then can we go back to the beginning of the conversation? I just want to fix this."

"You can't."

Spencer looks like he's going to cry. He's breathing loudly through his nose, his jaw clenched. It's a classic Spencer move that Ryan recognizes well. "Okay."

"You have to just let me be angry. What you said. Spence, I can't talk about it. Not with you. Maybe not ever." He runs a hand through his hair again. It's probably sticking up like he stuck a fork in a socket. "Doesn't mean I don't love you. You know that right?"

"Ryan," Spencer beings then breaks off. He swallows so loud that it sounds like a padlock clicking. It hurts, a dull pain that is actually sort of sweet. It's nice, to feel something that hurts but doesn’t need to be tucked into the boxes in his head. "How?"

Spencer is crying now, really crying. His body is braced against the door frame as tears drip down his cheeks into his beard. Ryan aches to touch him but still can't. He hates Klasinski and Johnson for ruining him in the first place on that cold floor with that goddamn spoon, hates Gabe for convincing him that drugs and acquiescence would be better than resistance, hates Gutierrez for the fucking pipe, hates Pete for failing him, hates everyone who ever touched him without permission or looked the other way, and he hates himself for letting those bastards take his ability to comfort his best friend away from him. He hates himself for the fact that he can't hide it from Spencer almost as much. 

"I did this to you, Ry. I put you there." He whispers, flinching as he says the words like each syllable is physical blow.

Just like that, the reality of Spencer's situation finally hits Ryan. He doesn't need to punish Spencer for the shit that fell out of his mouth, for the lost years, because Spencer's been doing a great job of that all by himself. He's built a Spartan, sad little life where he refuses to acknowledge that he is allowed to be happy or to let Jon love him as much as he clearly does because he's paying penance for Ryan's lost life. 

That helps, actually. It probably makes Ryan a small petty bitter little man, especially when knowing that Spencer was okay was all that kept him going for the longest time, but it does. It makes it easier to start to forgive Spencer – not just for what he said and how he treated Bob but for actually getting to live the real life that Ryan gave up for him. He can't forget, but he can forgive.

"You didn't make me buy that coke; you didn't make me steal that fucking car. You didn't make me do anything I didn't choose to that night. If anything, I shouldn’t have brought you with me that night. I got myself into Janick. And you didn't make me like this," he hisses, his rage boiling so hot that he can feel his blood bubbling under his skin. He jabs at the empty air. "They did. They fucking did this to me, Spencer, not you. I made it to finding the Iero Family and Bob, I lived long enough for it to eventually stop because of you."

Ryan watches Spencer rub at his face with the sleeve of his jacket like the little boy he used to be. It's only moderately effective, leaving his face blotchy. He sniffs his pink nose and nods. "Doesn't make it easier."

"No," Ryan agrees. "No it doesn't."

He waves a hand at Spencer, inviting him into his own damn home. It's backwards but the gesture goes a long way in putting things back together because Jon was right about that. He’s the one who had to forgive first. Spencer couldn't give it to himself, not on this.

"So, um, let's just, you know, deal with it being hard okay?"

"Yeah. Okay," Spencer agrees. He settles on the opposite end of the overstuffed couch, knees pulled up. "So. Bob huh?"

"Yeah?"

"You're in love with him?"

Ryan shrugs. He hasn't said the words out loud, not in ages. Not since before he found out what Gabe did to him, setting him up, whoring him out, trying to break him. He's not sure that he feels right saying them again to anyone other than Bob. 

"He seems like he loves you. For what it’s worth." 

A lot, Ryan decides. It's worth a fucking lot. Enough to make him want to try harder. "For what it's worth, Jon is stupid for you too."

Spencer laughs. It's been too long since Ryan managed to get him to do that. "Fuck you."

"Fuck you. He's stupid in love with you and has been since probably before I got out and you, what, don't know? Don't care?" Now it's Spencer's turn to go quiet. "If you've been ignoring his thing for you out of some twisted need to punish yourself-"

"Leave it, man. I'm leaving yours. You leave mine."

Okay, definitely hitting a little close to home with that one. "Stop it."

"Stop what?"

"Whatever it is that you think you need to do to make up for Janick. Fucking stop it okay because what I need you to do to make up for it is to be happy. Do you get that? I _need_ you to be happy or else what the hell was the point?"

"I didn't think there was a point," Spencer says softly. "I just thought there was an ADA with a vengeful streak and a dumbass public defender who didn't give enough of a shit to protect you like you deserved."

"You were the point. You were always the fucking point. The point was for you to live your goddamn life right. So fucking live it Spence. Stop insulting me by not."

"I'm trying."

Ryan reaches out and pokes Spencer in the ankle with his toe to punctuate each word. "Try harder, asshole." Then he sets his foot down on top of Spencer's. It's the best he can manage without pulling up the screaming urge to go running for the MAC he's got stashed away and the illusion of safety it could give him.

It's not perfect. He knows that Spencer really, really wants to hug him. It's written all over his face but Ryan can't take that and Spencer doesn't ask. Instead Spencer reaches for one of his law books while Ryan picks the guitar back up off the floor and that's something. It's a start. 

(end)


End file.
